WASHINGTON (JTA) –– During the 35 years Eli Rosenbaum spent hunting Nazis, he always looked up to his forebears in the profession. But it was only recently, as he ventured into Ukraine to track down Russian war criminals, that he felt a personal connection...
PJ Grisar, The Forward
• Published December 8, 2022
Gazing off with determination, or even a glimmer of hope on the cover, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, along with the “Spirit of Ukraine,” is the Time Person of the Year, joining an exclusive list of notable people and an even shorter list of Jews. Throughout...
(JTA) — When Russian troops poured across the Ukrainian border in March, thousands fled from the cities that would be first in their path. But in Kherson, the southern port city with strategic value to the Russians, Rabbi Yosef Itzhak Wolff decided...
Bill Motchan, Special For The Jewish Light
• Published August 24, 2022
As college classes wound down last spring, Michael Schmitz started looking for a summer internship. With no prospects on the horizon, he found a much different college break experience: volunteering in Poland for Ukraine relief efforts.
Schmitz, 21,...
VINNYTSIA, Ukraine (JTA) — At this city’s only regularly functioning synagogue, nine men and five women cheer a visitor on as he enters the building.
“Terrific! We have a 10th! Let’s begin!” one of the men, David Goldish, exclaimed during...
Just days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Covenant Place resident, Ruth Mariam, contacted Covenant Place President & CEO, Joan Denison, expressing her desire to help. Mariam, in her 90s, recalled how when her family members went to fight in...
(JTA) — Ukraine’s Jewish president Volodymyr Zelensky brought up the Holocaust to snap back at former Jewish U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who argued this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that Ukraine should...
Tatiana Glezer, Special For The Jewish Light
• Published April 30, 2022
Editor’s Note: The Jewish Light learned of Russian Jew Tatiana Glezer, 41, and her plight through a network of friends in the United States. Largely fluent in English, she agreed to write her story exclusively for the Light. Many thanks to author and...
(JTA) — Their son may be on TV every night, but the parents of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have consistently declined countless requests for interviews about their own lives.
The rabbi of their hometown of Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine’s east,...
(JTA) — The 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova died near her home in Mariupol, Ukraine, April 4, while the city was under a devastating Russian attack. Her family believed that her survivor testimony died with her.
Obiedkova...
BILL MOTCHAN, Special to the Jewish Light
• Published April 27, 2022
Eight years ago, during a photography workshop in Greece, Edward Tsimerman met Anastasia and Ilyia, a Russian couple (they asked that their last name not be used). Tsimerman, a Jewish St. Louisan, kept in touch with the couple and in recent weeks, learned...
(JNS) Israel will send helmets and vests to Ukraine’s rescue and emergency services, the Office of Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Wednesday.
During a phone call between Gantz and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, the Israeli...
